Hospital advocate says Medicaid expansion critical

HARRISBURG (AP) — An infusion of federal Medicaid dollars will make “a huge dent” in the roughly $1 billion in care that Pennsylvania hospitals provide to patients without insurance every year, the head of the industry’s main lobbying group said Monday.

Andy Carter, president and chief executive officer of the Pennsylvania Hospital and Healthsystem Association, said it is working with Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration to win approval for his unique plan to use Pennsylvania’s share of the money to buy coverage for the uninsured instead of expanding the state Medicaid program.

Speaking to business people and reporters at a Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon, Carter said the administration’s proposal would provide coverage for at least 350,000 uninsured residents.

Carter said the federal money is essential whether it is pumped into an expansion of the state’s Medicaid program or used to buy coverage through Pennsylvania’s new federally administered government-run online exchange program as Corbett proposes.

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“Most important to hospitals is the end goal,” he said. “Whether it’s full-blown Medicaid expansion or the model that Gov. Corbett has put in play. In either case, most observers believe that we will achieve close to universal coverage in the commonwealth.”

Pennsylvania is one of 36 states whose exchanges are being run by the federal government after Corbett, a Republican who opposed the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act, declined to take it on.